October 03, 2006

How to survive a plane crash

How on earth could anybody survive a plane crash? You'd think it would be impossible but a new documentary shown on BBC2 tonight (3/10/2006) suggests otherwise.

Apparently statistics show that in the US alone between 1983 and 2000, there were 568 plane crashes. With the sum total of 53,487 people onboard a staggering 51,207 survived.

How did they do it? It's simple. For years people have been told the same emergency procedures before take off, you know that video you never watch because you're too busy reading up on the in-flight entertainment options. Well next time you're onboard an aircraft pay attention as everything you see in those videos is there to help you preserve your life.

According to the BBC site Professor Ed Galea has studied over 2000 survivor reports before defining some quite simple solutions as to why they survived at all. He says "Surviving an aircraft crash is not a matter of fate. You can help yourself getting out of an aircraft quickly, and so there are things you can do to improve your chances of surviving,".

Even simple things like passengers undoing their seatbelts after the plane has crashed can be a common cause of failure, "People tend to try and press a button on the seatbelt because in this emergency situation, they revert to normal behaviour. And what's normal behaviour for most people? Well, they experience a seatbelt in their car and in their car, it's a push-button system.

"This seat belt is different to what's in your car; it's a latch that you've got to pull."